When Bogdan Mocanu was a child, pizza was a reward. If he did his chores or got a good mark in school, his mother made homemade pizza. That's not an uncommon story, but Mocanu didn't grow up in America. He was born in Romania under the Communist regime.

"Pizza in Romania was kind of a luxury," he said. "You had little ingredients, but it was really good quality."

Mocanu now cooks his own pizza at the newly opened St. Charles Avenue restaurant Dolce Vita Wood Fired Pizzeria. First, though, he tossed pies in a Baton Rouge food truck. Mocanu along with Nick Hufft, who still operates the popular Baton Rouge truck Curbside along with a fixed location inside the Warehouse District's Barcadia, are both bringing a taste of the capital's street food to New Orleans.

Mocanu's life, although no doubt anxious in the moment, sounds like a zany adventure in the retelling. It's the kind of story that would make a great movie, perhaps starring Robin Williams in that period before he turned mawkish.

The son of a sailor and a lawyer by training, Mocanu escaped Romania (maybe in 2003, he can't remember) to work illegally in kitchens across Spain and Italy. Eventually, he got a job on a cruise ship, where he upgraded his cooking skills.

After Katrina and Rita in 2005, he volunteered to work on a ship that became the temporary home for LSU's Health Sciences Center.

"That's where I met my beautiful wife," Mocanu said.

His future wife, unfortunately, was a ship guest. Mocanu was fired for fraternizing and locked in his cabin. After escaping, taking a bus to New York, and working in Little Italy for a time, he finally got married, established his immigration status and returned to Baton Rouge. It was there he undertook his oddest adventure.

Dolce Vita Wood Fired Pizzeria

1205 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans

504.324.7674

Open: Lunch and dinner, Tu–Su

He attended culinary school and ended up with a good job at LSU. But Mocanu wanted to make pizza.

"Pizza has always been in the back of my mind, no matter what," he said. "When I worked in Italy, I had the best pizza that can be done ever."

He couldn't afford to open a restaurant. So Mocanu hatched the scheme of installing a wood-burning on a trailer and hitching that to a food truck.

"I found someone crazy like me to build me one in Arizona," he said.

The Baton Rouge fire department, however, was less enthusiastic.

"The first meeting," Mocanu said, "I think they checked my name in a database to see if I escaped from a mental institution."

At the second meeting, he convinced the fire department that a wood burning oven should be street legal. With no hot grease and a fire that could be snuffed out by closing an oven door, it posed little danger. Mocanu didn't realize it was the street and not the embers that he had to worry about.

Last Easter, a car hit his food truck, knocking it into a cement column and seriously injuring Mocanu's hand. A month later, another driver slammed into the oven.

Now, Mocanu makes pizza in New Orleans on St. Charles Avenue. His new wood-burning oven, an Italian made Stefano Ferrara, sits far enough back at Dolce Vita that it's unlikely to face the brunt of another car bumper.

With his big personality, it's easy to understand how Mocanu developed a loyal following in Baton Rouge. On St. Charles Avenue, the wood-fired oven is in the center of the dining room, so that Mocanu can still work the room like a food truck operator greeting guests from a window.

The crust on Dolce Vita's pizza follows the Neapolitan model, its edges a patchwork of char. When it comes to toppings, however, Mocanu is far from a purist.

"Pizza united our family, because you can put anything you want on it," he said. "Pizza is what you want it to be."

He makes a classic margherita with cheese and basil but also a veggie pie with roasted squash, eggplant, zucchini and portobello drizzled with truffle oil and balsamic vinegar. On a recent night, the special pizza had roasted duck, peaches and a Jim Beam bourbon glaze.

Nick Hufft had a more conventional upbringing. Raised in New Orleans, he went to college at LSU. And like many kids from New Orleans, he found the food elsewhere to be lacking. Rather than boring his friends with his longings for gumbo and po-boys, Hufft took matters into his own hands and launched a late-night burger truck while still an undergrad.

Today, his Curbside truck, with its freshly ground patties, hand-cut fries and slightly mad innovations like pork belly preserves, is a leader of the Baton Rouge food truck scene. Since last Mardi Gras, he's served an expanded version of the food truck's menu inside the Warehouse District's Barcadia.

Curbside at Barcadia

601 Tchoupitoulas St., New Orleans

504.335.1740

Open: Lunch and dinner, daily (all ages until 9 p.m.)

Like many wildly praised food trucks, Curbside serves drunk food of the highest order. These are fat heavy indulgences that provide ballast after a night of debauchery. They're also the kind of dishes that seem like they were dreamed up after midnight.

The Classic Curbside burger sticks to tradition with American cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and house-made pickles. The Green Chile Cheeseburger, however, is a pantry clearing monster with pepper Jack cheese, green chilies, bacon, cilantro crema and a top layer of crunchy blue corn tortilla chips. The hand-cut fries can be ordered plain, or topped with enough extras, from cheddar and sour cream to bacon and pulled pork, to feed a family of four.

Hufft had eyed the New Orleans market since launching Curbside in Baton Rouge. The restrictions on food trucks, however, kept his dreams of a homecoming parked for a while. Now he's got a foothold in New Orleans at Barcadia. And when our food truck regulations are soon loosened, he plans to launch a New Orleans truck.

"With the CBD opening up," Hufft said, "I think New Orleans is going to be under attack by food trucks."

Jay Ducote, a Baton Rouge writer who blogs at Bite and Booze, has watched the Baton Rouge food truck scene explode over the last four to five years.

"There were no laws on the books to stop entrepreneurs from starting food trucks," Ducote said. "It became very trendy, very fast."

Baton Rouge restaurants, Ducote said, have also made strides.

"The average eater's palate has expanded," he said. "People are demanding better food."

Ducote, however, is quick to say any comparison between the food of Baton Rouge and New Orleans is unfair.

"There are great chefs and restaurants in Baton Rouge, but there will never be the quantity of fantastic restaurants that New Orleans has," he said. "That's okay. New Orleans is one of the true culinary capitals of the world. That's like comparing Philadelphia to New York."

Ducote predicts, though, that New Orleans will soon see more chefs who made their bones in Baton Rouge, both on food trucks and in restaurants.

"I think it's a natural progression for a young, aspiring chef that wants to be seen or get his name out," Ducote said. "I think the logical progression is New Orleans."